


Silent Night

by 12gatsunohime (inkstainedwretch)



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Christmas fic, Multi, Polyamory, Sebaciel in the background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 06:41:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26847601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkstainedwretch/pseuds/12gatsunohime
Summary: This is how this fic came into being: Ten o'clock Monday night, I got the idea to write some Servantrio Christmas-fluff. Then about 5 minutes later, I got the idea to write a Servantrio polyamory fic. Then about 10 minutes after that, I got the idea to write about the Servantrio's reaction to Sebastian and Ciel being in a relationship. They somehow merged.
Relationships: Baldroy/Finnian/Mey-Rin, Sebastian Michaelis/Ciel Phantomhive
Kudos: 5





	Silent Night

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to livejournal, [here](https://12gatsunohime.livejournal.com/25047.html).
> 
> (From the original post:)OH GOD IT'S FINALLY DONE. This thing got away from me so fast. It wasn't ever supposed to be this long...
> 
> Totally un-beta'd, unless you count the ten or twelve times I went back and fixed a bunch of things I didn't think sounded right, and I'm still not satisfied with it because I did the thing where my sentences get long and pretentious and it seems a little disjointed and I don't know if I used the switching tenses well enough, but oh well.  
>   
> Also, in Victorian times, flower meanings were really important, right, so I'm gonna use a bunch of that here. Also, I just learned how to use span tags, so IF YOU SEE PLANT NAMES AND STUFF, TRY HOVERING, MKAY? (Also some other bits will have span text, but yeah.) :D

It's snowing again.

It's actually been snowing a lot this week. It's mid-December, and the cold is enough to chill the whole house to the very core. So Finny puts more wood on the fire, adding some pine branches to give the manor a warm, welcoming aroma. It's as tangible as a blanket around Maylene's shoulders, keeping her smiling even as she trips over her own feet in the laundry room and scatters the dirty sheets across the floor. Somehow, when she gasps in shock and tastes the faintest hint of pine sap, she knows it will be alright, in the end.

Bard is in a visibly better mood; winter means he can make his favorite recipes, the ones he knows the young master loves. Despite Sebastian's usual opinion of him, he really is a good cook, he can simply get...overzealous. Once he calms down and settles into his work, he can make meat pies and roasts that will put even the young master himself into a delightful, dream-like state that only comes after a truly satisfying meal. Provided he doesn't get carried away and turn everything into a blackened mess. Again.

Really, that's the case with them all. If they relax, they do their job much better. Of course, these days they don't have the luxury of relaxing much, at all. Tension has been a way of life since they came to work for the young master. If it's not another attack on the mansion that calls for the crack of gunshots and the crash of stone and the blaze of explosions above, behind, around them...then, it's the searing gaze of Sebastian that makes their spines just that much straighter, makes them walk that much faster, electrifies their nerves until all they can think is _oh god is he behind me_.

Still, Maylene thanks heaven for the snow that collects in drifts outside the mansion and decorates the windows with frost. It means there won't be any of the first kind of tension until the snow stops--no one wants their gunmen freezing to death, after all. And it means that this year, soon there won't be any of the second kind, either.

~*~*~

Maylene was the first to find out.

Really, she had always known, somewhere in the back of her mind where she kept the thoughts she knew could get her into unspeakable trouble. But she had dismissed her suspicions as the imaginings of her mind, just as she had dismissed the oddly similar thoughts that would creep up every time Bard would put an arm around Finnian's shoulder and Finnian would smile warmly at him. It simply wasn't possible, she had concluded. It would have been a drastic breach of position, not even considering the law the Queen had signed not too long ago. It would never be real outside the walls of her own mind. And it never was.

Until one night when she had lost one of the buttons on her apron while preparing the young master's bed that evening. Looking at the clock, she surmised that the young master would still be in the bath, giving her just enough time to unlock the door, slip back in and reclaim the button from where it most likely rested on the floor beside the bed. It would be simple enough to accomplish without disturbing either the young master or his butler.

Simplicity, however, had taken a leave of absence that night.

The button was, in fact, hanging by a thread from the doorknob to the young master's room. In losing the button, she had left the door unlocked and open just a little wider than an inch, enough to see where the bed was framed by the window on the wall behind. Had the view been just a bit smaller, had the curtains been closed, had the moon not been full and bright like a spotlight, she might have taken the button, thanked her good fortune at not having to enter the room again after all, and gone back to the servants' quarters still perfectly happy to continue dismissing her thoughts as simple fantasy.

But the moonlight called to her, drawing her eyes up to the gap between the doors, washed the room in a silvery, ethereal glow. Painted slivers of light across the young master's face, where it was turned up toward the stars. Danced over his eyelashes, where they had clamped shut, over his shirt as it lay wide open at his sides, over his chest as it palpitated with every rapid, shallow breath that hissed through his teeth. And it cast everything else into shadow, making the image before her a startling monochrome, outlined by white, but filled in with black: the shape of a shoulder, tense and shuddering, an arm, where it reached up, fingers, where they were clutched tightly in the lapels of a coat. There was another set of eyes, open and flashing, another set of teeth, wide and grinning, another set of hands...

Oh, god.

She froze, unable to move, unable to think, unable even to flush with embarrassment or shock or anything else. She simply stared, eyes wide in disbelief. It didn't look real. It didn't seem real. As far as Maylene's mind could figure, it simply wasn't real.

Until the young master spoke.

"Sebastian..." it came out in a harsh, breathless whisper, "... _more_."

Maylene felt a stab of realization in the pit of her stomach that made her jerk backward and bolt down the hall, running on her toes so as not to make too much noise. She didn't let herself think, didn't let herself react until she had half-fallen down the stairs to the servants' quarters and sunk to the floor in the doorway with a _thwomp_ of petticoats. She sat there, wordless, shaking like a leaf with her hands over her face desperately trying to hide the shade of red it was turning.  
_  
The young master asked for it. The young master wanted it. The young master might have even_ started _it, and Sebastian...Sebastian..._

When Bard and Finny asked her what was wrong, she just shook her head and waved them away. They didn't ask again.

~*~*~

"Finny?"

"Hm?"

"What's your favorite kind of flower?" Bard looked to the side at the forest of color beside him, idly chewing on a piece of grass.

It was summer, and they were laying on the ground between the flower beds, watching the clouds as they drifted lazily by. The young master and Sebastian were in London on an assignment, so they didn't have to worry about being ordered back to work. Besides which, the sun was setting, and they had finished their chores a while ago.

"Hm...why?" Finny was still gazing up at the sun-gold sky, eyes unfocused and smiling.

"I just wonder sometimes, if there are some flowers you like better than others," Bard shrugged, plucking a dandelion puff and blowing the seeds off. "Since you work with so many. I can't tell the difference between most of them, so I don't know which ones are any good."

"M-hm..." Finny let his eyes drift shut for a moment before he spoke again. "Tulips."

"Really? Why tulips?"

Finny looked over at the tulip bed next to where Bard lay.

"Tulips are happy flowers. They don't have any thorns, and they're always nice, bright colors. You don't usually see people put tulips on gravestones, or at funerals. And you see them around the church at Easter, by the stained glass windows." He closed his eyes again and smiled. "The young master doesn't like them too much, but I do."

"Hm."

After that they simply lay there, not needing to fill the silence, letting time slip by them. After what could have been an hour for all they knew, the sound of footsteps and metal wheels told them Maylene was coming with a tea tray. They sat up slowly and brushed the grass off of their backs.

"I made it iced, since it's nice and warm outside!" She said, sitting down beside them and passing around glasses of already-sweetened tea. She had let her hair down for the day, and she had left her glasses on her nightstand, the way she always did when the young master was out. She looked so nice this way, Bard thought. It was such a shame she didn't do this very often.  
  
They raised their glasses in a wordless toast, basking together in the summer evening.

"So, what were you two talking about? I could hear your voices, but I couldn't hear what you were saying."

"Flowers," Bard said simply.

"Flowers?" Maylene raised an eyebrow.

"Yep!" Finny reached over and plucked a tulip from the flower bed. It was gold, with many shades of bronze and red blooming from its center. He leaned over and set it behind Maylene's ear like a hair ornament.

"You look very pretty without your glasses, you know," he said, every bit as cheerful as always. "I can see your eyes this way."

Maylene smiled and ducked her head, and Bard could see a faint line of pink across her cheeks.

Finny then took a daffodil from the ground and placed it behind Bard's ear.

"I think daffodils suit Bard better, though." Still just as bright, still just as happy. Maylene snorted with laughter.

Bard tried not to let his voice shake as he laughed along with her, tried to forget the tingling on the edge of his ear, where Finny's fingertips had brushed.

~*~*~

They are alone this Christmas. The three of them, and the cold, stone silence of the manor.

Sebastian tells them this one morning after a letter arrives from Lady Middleford, an invitation. The young master is hesitant, but in the end it seems he has no choice; if he does not go to visit her, she will come to the manor herself, and Maylene's not sure she wants to have to take down that much ribbon and lace again, anyway.

He's taking Tanaka with him. They wonder why. Bard hears Sebastian muttering something about "past his time" and "those bespectacled twits", but he still doesn't understand, and really can't be bothered to ask.

They look at each other in silence that evening, all wondering, but none asking: _what are we supposed to do_?

~*~*~

Finnian wasn't as oblivious as he appeared most of the time. He didn't try to purposefully hide how much he understood, but he didn't like to get too involved in emotionally charged affairs; they almost always led to people getting hurt.

Finnian knew the language of flowers, trees, and plants. He knew what it meant when the young master had received a vase full of poppies from Lady Middleford after the death of his aunt, or when he sent her Queen Anne's Lace on her birthday. He knew what it meant when he took a bouquet of white carnations to his aunt's grave.

So he also knew what it meant when Sebastian told him to replace all of the daisies in the garden with other flowers, as daisies would no longer be appropriate for the young master. And what flowers could not say, the simmer in Sebastian's eyes had told him loud and clear.

So Finnian was the second to find out, though he was the last to see it with his own eyes. But he understood. Oh, he understood. And that was what made him fear Sebastian more than anything else in the mortal world.

~*~*~

They don't have a tree.

The young master actually demands that they not have one; he says it's a waste of money, since he's going out of town this year, anyway. He doesn't want them to use their time and energy putting together something he won't even see when they could be working, like they should be. Sebastian just smiles and bows and that is that.

They make their own once he has left. Finny goes out and finds a smaller one than most people would use, but it's the right size for just the three of them. Maylene finds some brilliantly colored ribbon in the attic and weaves long strips of paper into garland. They don't use any candles as lights; it would be far too dangerous, given their luck. But Bard carves them an angel out of some spare wood, and they take the ribbon and some small trinkets of their own and make it the most beautiful thing any of them have ever seen.

~*~*~

Sebastian knew that Maylene saw. He never said it, but his eyes, his voice, his sneer, told her that he knew. And he didn't care. Because it didn't matter.

~*~*~

The first time the young master went on an assignment, they rose at dawn, changed the linens in the master bedroom, set up the furniture in the garden, prepared breakfast and set it on a tray outside of Sebastian's door, made sure to trim the trees and hedges before any guests might arrive, took a tray of tea out to the garden in the afternoon, washed the fountain in the front until it shone, and polished the banister on the staircase twice so it gleamed like a mirror.

Then, Bard began to make dinner and realized that the breakfast tray he had sent out was still sitting by Sebastian's door, untouched. And Finny went out to the garden to take down the furniture and saw that the tea had gone cold and overbrewed. And Maylene was in the process of drawing the young master's bath when Tanaka walked by and looked in through the door with a smile.

"You know, the young master would not like such a waste of hot water."

She shut off the tap immediately, jaw dropping.

They met each other in the entryway, staring in disbelief at the realization that they had spent the past fourteen hours living like wind-up dolls. Almost a minute passed in stunned nothingness.

"What do we do now?" Finny's bubbles of laughter were gone, replaced by confused uncertainty. None of them had an answer.

And then Tanaka came up from the kitchen with a tray of ginger snaps and warm tea, and they sat together around their table, slowly figuring out what it meant to live without orders.

~*~*~

He wasn't quite sure when _it_ had started.

 _It_ was the name for the tremor in Bard's stomach when Finny smiled that bright, unassuming smile at him. The tingle left behind on his fingertips when he handed a dish to Maylene and their hands brushed for the slightest moment. The vaguely painful tightness in his chest whenever he thought of the other two, and how empty his life would be without them. The blissful warmth that spread from beneath his heart, right through his arms and stomach when they drank iced tea in the garden, or when they ate dinner together, or when they all just talked and laughed and smiled and _lived_ , a world apart from the gunfire and the cold, cold stares.

Bard didn't realize that those things were all so connected. Not for a long while. And when he did...

He remembers it, too, down to the moment. It was late summer, and he was lying in bed, wondering just what was causing the ache just under his breastbone that made it hard to breathe. He wondered if maybe he was sick with something, if he should try to rest more often and stop breathing in the smoke from the stove. He rolled to one side and saw Finny, already asleep, his hair falling over his face without the usual pins to hold it in place. The ache in his chest became stronger.

His eyes flared open, his stomach clenched, and try as he might, he could not tear his eyes away from the way Finny's hair fluttered with each breath he took. His mind conjured up an image of Maylene, of how she must have looked in her own room, hair fanned out against the pillow, eyes closed, breathing soft. The ache grew again.

He closed his eyes, turned over so his face was against the pillow, and cursed himself.

He did not sleep well that night.

~*~*~

It is not their first time without the young master now, nor their second. They have done this enough times to become familiar with the scent of cinnamon from the kitchen where Bard is stirring cookie mix with one hand and flipping through the cookbook with the other, using that one bag of sugar he always tells Sebastian went bad months ago, but never seems to get rid of. Maylene has finished her chores today without once adjusting glasses that are not there. Finny is covering the doorframes with store-bought ribbon, something he had to save his pocket money for months to surprise them all with. They are happy.

Bard is leaning on the side of the doorway, watching Finny as he bounces around the living room singing "I Saw Three Ships" at the top of his lungs. Or at least, it had been "I Saw Three Ships" when he'd begun singing, but it was clear he only knew maybe half a verse's worth of the words and was now making them up as he went, and what was once a carol about the Virgin Mary and her son was now a song about his favorite flavors of pie. Maylene can't quite suppress a laugh as she comes up to stand behind Bard.

"How many verses is he on now?"

"At least six," Bard shrugs his shoulders. "I'm starting to wonder when he'll run out of ideas."

"I'm guessing we'll find him asleep by the fireplace with a half-finished wreath in his hands tomorrow morning," Maylene turns to rest her back against the other side of the doorframe.

"And there'll be three finished ones sitting next to him," Bard chuckles.

"And when we wake him up, the first thing he'll ask is whether we have any more ribbon to weave into them."

"Except immediately after he says that, he'll realize he never ate dinner and ask what I made for breakfast."

Maylene throws her head back and laughs, mostly because it is, if nothing changes anytime soon, very likely to happen. She stretches her arms above her head with a relaxed smile--and then stops on her toes at the sight of the green leaves and white berries right in her line of vision. A thousand thoughts whip through her mind, thoughts like _where did Finny get that_ and _why did he put it in the smallest doorway in the living room_ and _wait, did Finny even put this here_ and then everything just stops, and suddenly she can't hear anything but her own pulse, pounding against her ears like gunshots.

"Hm?" Bard has apparently noticed that she is still standing on her toes, and it only takes a moment for him to follow her line of vision and find the offending plant. Maylene hadn't thought it possible for someone's eyes to shoot open and then blink so many times without some kind of injury.

Neither of them say a word until Finny is on his seventh verse.

"I..." Bard half-coughs.

And then silence again.

In the end, it is Maylene who moves first, lowering her arms and letting her heels back down. Before she can talk herself out of it, she leans in and presses her lips against his cheek, just for an instant, almost touching the corner of his mouth. She lets herself stay there just a moment too long, just a moment long enough for Bard to reach a hand up to turn her face towards his and kiss her like it matters. She takes a step forward, puts her hands on his shoulders, and responds with a longing she hasn't wanted to acknowledge for a long, long time. For a split second she worries about what will happen when she has to explain--because she will, inevitably, have to explain--but none of that matters now because Bard's other arm is around her waist and she can smell the smoke from his last cigarette on his shirt and his lips are warm and soft and just a little bit wet and it feels so damnably _good_.

When they separate, they say nothing. They look at each other for just a moment, the familiar understanding still there, and then Bard looks back into the living room, where Finny has now begun a litany on the wonders of candy canes and gingerbread to the tune of "Joy to the World". Maylene nods to herself and steps into the living room, on the other side of the doorway, away from the white berries.

Neither of them mentions it again.

~*~*~

Bard didn't find out until the next time the young master was out on an assignment, weeks and weeks after Maylene had come running to the servant's quarters in deep shock. It was over dinner, a vase of hydrangeas sitting on the end of the table. Bard had made some of the best stew to date, so conversation took a backseat to enjoying the meal until Finny spoke.

"The young master was in an awfully bad mood before he left, wasn't he?" An innocuous sentence, an innocuous topic.

"He was at breakfast, yeah, but I saw Sebastian bring him some cake afterwards, and he seemed to be in a much better mood after that," Bard said offhandedly. "Hah, the young master sure does love his cake!" He chuckled to himself. Maylene's spoon stopped halfway to her mouth.

"Oh? What kind of cake was it?" She asked, coughing halfway through the question. Finny glanced at her with knowledge in his eyes. So, he understood.

"I dunno, something French with a lot of chocolate," Bard shrugged. "Took him a long time to serve it, though. I didn't see him bring the tray back until they were about to leave."

A pause. They both looked at Bard, just long enough to read his eyes. He didn't know.

"Did you..." she continued, "hear anything from inside the office?"

"Not really, no," Bard took his own bowl and set it in the sink. "Why?"

They had to pick him up off the floor and carry him to bed by the time their explanation was done.

~*~*~

The third night after the young master leaves is when they find him.

They spend the better part of the evening searching, pistols cocked, rifle loaded, checking around every corner before they turn, eyes sharp and feet quick. He has never gone missing for this long before, and they search with a slight air of desperation now, hoping against hope he is alright, knowing the odds are against him.

They find him on the other side of the mansion, leaning against the stone, ivy-covered wall of the old stables, a part of the manor that went unused even before they began working there. His knees are curled into his chest, his head is buried in his arms, and he is sobbing.

Maylene waves her arm to tell Bard he is there before they both run up to him, guns set aside but close enough to grab if the need arises.

"Finny," she whispers, "what's wrong?"

"It's not fair," he chokes out. "It's not fair to me, or you, or anyone. It shouldn't happen. It just shouldn't."

"What's not fair?" Bard smooths a hand through his hair, reassured that there is no danger of the physical nature near by. "Why are you crying?"

"Because--" he coughs, gasps, continues, "because I love you. Both of you. And I can't just love one of you. It has to be both of you. And that's not right...not right at all."

There's a pause. Maylene looks at Bard for a long, long time. Finny continues to draw shaky, hiccuping breaths, eyes red with sadness, face red with shame. They give the most fleeting glances, towards Finny, towards each other. They have talked about this before. Not in any great length, but they have. Conversations that consisted of half-sentences, conversations like I-you-I know-and him-me, too. And that was all. It takes them almost a full minute to decide if those words were enough. And then Maylene speaks.

"But, Finny," she reaches for his hand. "Don't you see? We love you, too."

"No," he shakes his head. "No, nononono. You don't understand. I don't love you like brothers and sisters love each other. I don't love you like friends love each other. No, I mean--" his breath hitches, hitches again, like he can't bring himself to say it, because he can't, "I-I love you like...like nothing else in the world. Like the young master and Sebas--well, not exactly like that, but I want--you understand?"

They do. They smile while he collapses again, not waiting for their response.

"And I know that's not right! Because it's not fair for one person to want to have two people! And, it's not fair to you, either, because--because--"

"Shh," Maylene takes a handkerchief out of her pocket and cleans his face slowly, gently. "It's alright." To prove her point, she gives his cheek a quick, gentle kiss, even as she's wiping the tears from the other. "We know."

Bard sits down beside him and puts an arm around his shoulders, and when Maylene is finished he pulls him close and holds him, resting her head in the crook of the young man's neck. "That's what we meant," he says softly. "We love you. So, so much."

Maylene leans forward and wraps her arms around them both, hands holding onto Bard's shoulders. Finny's eyes are wide, his mouth hanging open just the smallest bit.

"You...you...really?" He whispers.

"Of course," Maylene nuzzles her face against his. "Of course."

~*~*~

The first time Finny heard Tanaka speak in a full sentence, he nearly jumped out of his skin.

"You know, I don't think I've ever seen three people more suited to each other than you all."

Finny's shears stopped mid-snip and he wheeled his head around to see the man standing by his ladder, holding a cup of tea, looking so much taller, so much more...dignified. He tilted his head.

"What does that mean?"

Tanaka took a drink of his tea.

"Servants cannot choose the people they live with. Their positions are assigned by the nobles they serve. It was not your choice to work for the young master together, and yet the three of you have created such a marvelous life for yourselves. It's a gift many people, and many more people such as us, never receive. You should treasure it."

Finny blinked a few times before finally sighing contentedly.

"You're right," he set down his shears and took a seat on the top of the ladder. "Before the young master took me in, my only friend was the little bird who would fly outside my window, and now...but, it's not just the three of us, Tanaka! You're our friend, too!"

He looked down to see the Tanaka he had always known, kneeling on the ground and sipping his tea.

"Ho~" Tanaka's smile was like a sunrise.

~*~*~

Maylene discovered what _it_ was about a month after Bard.

It was when master Lau decided to pay them a surprise visit, and what was a visit from Lau without his lovely Ranmao, as well? So evening found them showing their guests to their usual room, since Lau refused to stay in a different room--"so I can make sure my Ranmao is safe", he said. But Ranmao had a tendency to wander around at night, poking her head through doorways, sitting beside people and just looking at them for no apparent reason, and generally acting sort of like a cat looking for someone to pet it.

So it didn't _really_ surprise Maylene when she found Miss Ranmao walking down the hallway by the laundry room. And it didn't _really_ surprise her when Miss Ranmao turned and started walking towards her, expression completely unchanged.

What did surprise her, and rightfully so, she thought, is when Miss Ranmao didn't _stop_ until there were a pair of slender arms around her waist and a head pressed into her chest.

"M-M-Miss Ranmao," she whispered, "w-w-w-what are you doing?"

"Warm."

"I-I-I...uh..." She had no idea what to do, and even less of one when Miss Ranmao began nuzzling the side of her face into her apron.

"Warm." The Chinese beauty said again, and Maylene wondered whether or not she should scream.

Then Bard came walking by the doorway, carrying a ham from the cellar to use for tomorrow's lunch, and stopped dead and stared at the two of them. Suddenly, Maylene's arms lifted up and out, and her mouth opened, and a flurry of explanations were about to spring from her mouth. She was ashamed--

And then nothing came out of her mouth, because she realized she was not ashamed for the reasons she should have been.

But Bard just snorted with laughter, and nodded, and his lopsided grin told her her he understood. And then he left, and Maylene just patted Ranmao's hair and sighed to herself, because really, she didn't think he understood, at all.

~*~*~

They are going to have to learn to be quiet.

The thought flashes through Bard's mind for just an instant, just long enough to be considered a thought at all. Because when the young master comes back, they will need to be quiet.

The thought emerges as another of Maylene's cries resounds in his ears, as her hair drapes over his back, as her body presses against him and she just lets _go_. But he saves it for later, because then Finny moves forward, and Bard can feel him, beside him, within her, and he leans across Maylene's shoulder to devour his mouth, and they go from being three to two to one, together, and he cannot think at all.

~*~*~

It is the most bizarre combination of strange and familiar. They moved so much furniture to get their beds in the same room, lined right up against each other so they could lie like this, under the same blankets that wove together in such a haphazard way Maylene considers borrowing a blanket or two that they normally use for the guest beds, just until the young master comes back. She thinks she remembers a set of blankets they don't use anymore, blankets that might be big enough to cover all three of them.

If they are even three separate people anymore, that is.

Her muscles ache. They ache a lot. She moves her mouth and tastes Finny, moves her legs and feels a soreness she never thought could be quite that intense. There is an oval of small, red marks in the pattern of Finny's teeth on her collarbone, a row of pink scratches the width of Bard's fingernails on her side. Bard is lying on her arm, his head resting right next to the long bruise made by his own fingers. Finny is practically draped across her, his left hand reaching all the way to Bard's right, where they are idly clasped. She can see the dark, dark spot on the side of his neck, just the size of her mouth, where she had latched onto him right when she...

She tilts her head to one side and hears a symphony of cracking from her neck. They are fantastically sticky and the room absolutely reeks of sex. The sheets will have to be washed first thing the next morning, and she feels fluids that are not her own begin to leak out of her and idly wonders how she's going to clean herself from the inside out.

But for now, all she wants to do is fall asleep like this, in a tangle of arms and legs and happiness.

~*~*~

When he wakes up, it takes him a long, long time to figure out why his leg is asleep. He doesn't want to move beause he realizes he can't, realizes he's half-buried and half-on top of two other people. And he snaps his eyes open to make sure it's real.

His motions wake the other two. Slowly, they shift and slide and unstick from each other until they are almost sitting up, and he watches Bard stretch his arm out and Maylene comb a few fingers through her thouroughly mussed hair and suddenly he's crying again.

They're beside him in an instant, all caresses and reassurance and what's wrong and are you alright and he just throws his arms around them and squeezes as hard as he can, smiling so wide his face hurts. He covers them in a flurry of kisses on their faces and chests and shoulders and anything he can reach because he is just so _happy_ and he has to show them or else he's sure he'll burst.

"I love you," he sobs, "I love you, I love you, I love you."

They hold him tight and press their lips to either side of his face and the sun shines brighter that day, and every day after.

~*~*~

The young master came back, and by the time he did, something had changed within the manor. Finny had taken down the tree and ribbon and mistletoe, but he put the ribbons and angel and ornaments under his bed, to keep for the next holiday. Maylene had patched up the old blankets and brought them downstairs because really, all they would do otherwise was gather dust in the attic, anyway. Bard had put his carpentry skills to work to combine their beds. Tanaka had his own room, now, the one that Maylene had lived in before. They had begun waking up before Sebastian came to get them, and after a while he simply stopped altogether. They were smiling just a bit more often, working with just a little more spirit, and even the young master began to notice that the house seemed much more happy than it had in a long time.

He is staying home this Christmas, and so Finny has taken his decorations and hung them on the walls and cieiling of the servant's quarters. He's left out the mistletoe this year, though; he figures they don't really need it.

They are sitting by the fire, wrapped up together and drinking hot chocolate. The moon glows outside, a bright silver eye watching over them, but they have drawn the curtains so the moon can't see them. It's just them and the fire, and the fire does not mind. Bard takes a deep breath, wanting to capture this moment and save it in his mind, in his body, in his very soul, and keep it for the rest of his life. From beside him, Finny begins to sing, his voice clear and strong like church chimes.

" _Silent night, holy night..._ " 

" _All is calm, all is bright..._ " Maylene has joined, bright like sleighbells in the city.

" _'Round yon Virgin Mother and Child, Holy infant so tender and mil_ _d..._ " Bard sings with them, deep like the clocktower.

Their music carries, echoes, soft and muffled, down the hallways and up the staircases until it is barely a murmur. Through Tanaka's room, where he is sleeping soundly, through the bathroom, where the water Maylene drew earlier is getting cold, through the office, where Sebastian and the young master are kissing languidly, and they wrap themselves tighter and let it carry, let it spread until the whole house resounds with the music.

" _Sleep in heavenly peace..._ "

Their voices are not perfect, and their blanket is getting dusted with soot, and the cocoa stains on their mugs will never quite come out because they will fall asleep like this and leave them on the hearth, and life is perfect.

" _Sleep in heavenly peace._ "

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas.


End file.
